Archive for the 'International' Tag Under 'Letters To The Editor' Category

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speak with 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft. (Photo by Associated Press/CBS)

LAGUNA BEACH, Denny Freidenrich: Several letter-writers have ripped Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's appearance before Congress [“Benghazi blunders,” Jan. 28]. As a victim of blood clots, I know how Clinton felt when she appeared before the House and Senate committees investigating the Sept. 11 tragedy in Benghazi.

The Republicans on the committees were right to examine the State Department's reaction to the events that unfolded in Libya. However, GOP lawmakers went too far. If I didn't know better, I would say they were in danger of stroking out themselves. It must be time for them to check their blood pressure.

‘60 Minutes' debacle

TUSTIN, Korean Callahan: It was noble of Hillary Clinton to fall on the sword and claim responsibility for the Obama administration's handling of the Benghazi tragedy. Yet it seems like a deal was struck so that she will have full support from the Democrats in running for the 2016 presidency.

FILE - In this July 24, 2005 file photo, Luke Armstrong, rear right, tries to touch the winner's trophy held by his father, Lance Armstrong, after Armstrong won his seventh straight Tour de France cycling race, in Paris. During the second part Friday, Jan. 18, 2013, of Oprah Winfrey's interview with Armstrong, Armstrong talked about talking with Luke after his son had defended him concerning doping allegations. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

BEVERLY HILLS, Alexander Nevsky, Mr. Universe 2010-2012: A spotlight was shone this month on the harmful practice of steroid use during Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah Winfrey, where he admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs in all seven of his Tour de France victories.

For an adult, the use of steroids is dangerous. For youth who are still growing and developing, steroid use can be devastating.

In 1993, a top Russian TV channel produced and aired a documentary, introducing me as a natural, drug-free bodybuilder. Since that initial exposure and publicity, I have used every interview and public appearance to articulate my anti-steroid message and have parlayed it into a 20-year, international anti-steroids campaign.

It is well-documented, through reputable medical studies, that anabolic steroids can cause many serious health risks, including kidney failure, liver damage and high risk of stroke and heart attack (even in young people). While adults can be expected to be informed about these potential dangers, younger users are unlikely to fully understand, or give credence to, the grave consequences.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tamatha Patterson looks on as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, center, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey sign a memo lifting a combat ban on women in the military at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Jan. 24, 2013. The decision overturns a 1994 Pentagon rule that restricted women from artillery, armor, infantry and other such combat roles. (Brendan Hoffman/The New York Times)

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Louise Wright: I was very pleased that Pentagon Chief Leon Panetta removed the ban on women serving combat roles [“Ban lifted on women in combat,” Front Page, Jan. 24]. However, women are already fighting on the front lines in many areas. We are in combat in work and in sports – and even in combat to control our own bodies.

Ultimately, women have been, and continue to be, fighting for our right to choose. It is a relief to know that the Defense Department finally gets it. Women should have the right to choose for ourselves what “combat” we want to participate.

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HUNTINGTON BEACH, Harold Bradford: Unless women are suddenly as strong as men, who is going to carry all the gear infantry troops are required to carry into the field? In the future, men in combat not only will have to face the enemy, but may have to do so with a female comrade who is not strong enough to carry him to safety if the situation called for it. He would have to wait for a man to do the job, quite possibly dying as a result.

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), left, and Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.) leave the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, Jan. 1, 2013. After spending much of the day exploring the possibility of adding spending cuts to the measure and returning it to the Senate, the House Republican leadership abandoned that strategy Tuesday night. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/The New York Times)

Take Obama's line

in the sand seriously

LAGUNA BEACH, Denny Freidenrich: The last time we faced a debt ceiling crisis, in the summer of 2011, GOP House Speaker John Boehner walked out of the negotiations, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell urged his colleagues to cede the problem to the White House, and President Barack Obama warned that millions of Social Security and other government checks might not go out. Thankfully, that brand of Washington “chicken” proved to be too much for everyone on Capitol Hill. A compromise was reached hours before the Aug. 2 deadline.

Today's debate about raising the debt limit is not so much about national policy as it is about political heft. Since 1962, Congress has voted to raise the financial bar more than 70 times. Even Dick Armey, a former conservative leader in the House, and a key Tea Party insider at the time, admitted the debt ceiling needed be raised in 2011. And who can forget Sen. John McCain challenging the so-called conservative “hobbits” in Congress to get on with the people's business?

This Nov. 16, 2012, file photo shows President Barack Obama, accompanied by House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, speaking to reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, as he hosted a meeting of the bipartisan, bicameral leadership of Congress to discuss the deficit and economy. (AP Photo)

WASHINGTON D.C., Anthony T. Hawkins, national coordinator, Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Braintrust: While it did extend unemployment benefits, the fiscal cliff deal failed to resolve looming budget cuts that could hurt some of the most vulnerable, unemployed workers: young veterans.

Many veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan face an unemployment rate roughly two percentage points higher than their peers. Roughly half cope with a disability and the stigma that comes along with it, making it even tougher to find work.

Yet the federal government has threatened to triple veterans' health care premiums to help pay down the deficit while discharging more than 100,000 troops, effectively sending them to the unemployment line.

Veterans understand just as well as anyone that the government needs to control federal spending. They don't understand why veterans' benefits must take the brunt of the cuts when the military is spending enormous sums on new fighter jets like the Joint Strike Fighter, a struggling defense program that will cost nearly twice as much as expected at $1.5 trillion.

CORONA, Tim I. Martin: President Barack Obama is to be commended for some direct hits in his Jan. 16 gun-safety event. But he needs to alter his shooting stance if he really wants solutions. Character assassination may have helped defeat Mitt Romney, but it will not gain consensus with the National Rifle Association.

Obama misfired with obsolete data that “40 percent of gun sales are done without a background check.” Even Politifact has problems with this data. Obama's opinion is based on a random phone survey of about 2,500 people in 1994. The FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check system wasn't launched until Nov. 30, 1998. The 130,025,276 total background checks done (FBI figures, through 2011) didn't begin until four years after this oft-quoted “study.” The NRA's guns aren't the only thing blowing smoke.

The 40 percent claim hammered by the president, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others may sound good to a room full of people that gave Obama two standing ovations, but for Americans aiming at facts, that dog don't hunt.

In this Sunday Jan. 6, 2013 file image released by the Egyptian Presidency, President Mohammed Morsi, center, meets with his cabinet including 10 new ministers after their swearing in at the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt. As Egypt begins the latest round of talks with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan, the government says it will boost international confidence in its economy. However, critics question whether the president's Muslim Brotherhood group has the ability to carry out unpopular austerity measures ahead of crucial parliamentary elections that will take place in the coming months. (AP Photo/Egyptian Presidency, File)

The film's point that some prominent American Islamist leaders with Muslim Brotherhood-sympathies feign support for American ideals while simultaneously working to advance an Islamist agenda was affirmed last month by an Egyptian writer in a piece for the Egyptian news-magazine Rose El-Youssef. The article, “A man and 6 of the Brotherhood in the White House,” found in a translation on the Investigative Project on Terrorism website, named six Muslim Brotherhood operatives with high-level political access in the United States. Investor's Business Daily has investigated the Rose El-Youssef article ["Egyptian Press Confirms Washington Infiltrated by Islamists," Jan. 9 ] and has profiled four of the six -- Mohamed Elibiary (Homeland Security adviser), Rashad Hussain (Obama's special envoy to the Muslim world), Arif Alikhan (former Assistant Homeland Security secretary), and Imam Mohamed Magid (Homeland Security adviser) – as at least coming “under scrutiny” according to ex-FBI agents.

It is simply a matter of pressing important questions when Islamic leaders' cultivated public images do not comport with their anti-American conduct. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, “A Nasty Neologism [Jan. 9],” former terrorism-finance analyst Jonathan Schanzer calls “Islamophobia” a “pejorative neologism designed to warn people away from criticizing any aspect of Islam” and he challenges those who would use this excuse to avoid critically needed cultural debates. He makes the powerful point that reform-minded Muslims will suffer most if America continues to allow “dogmatism [to] chill the crucial conversations that need to take place about Islamism here in the West.”

Californians paid the 15th highest property taxes in the U.S. at $63 per capita in 2009. (Register photo)

TUSTIN, Simon Turner, director, government affairs, Building Managers and Owners Association Orange County: The editorial “Getting around Prop. 13” [Jan. 7] aptly describes the creative legislative measures our rulers are devising to ratchet up taxes on Californians while they have the opportunity. In polls, taxes that appear to be applied only to others obviously have a certain populist appeal. The notion of tinkering with Proposition 13 by creating a “split roll,” whereby commercial properties are excluded from Prop. 13 protections, certainly seem to fall under this category.

However, there are often unintended consequences when legislation is based on public opinion polls. The public may not know that a conventional commercial building lease establishes a baseline for real estate taxes early in the lease term. Just like homes, the taxes are based on the building's assessed value. If the property is reassessed, and the taxes go up, the lease allows the owner to pass the tax increase directly through to the tenant. The tenant, who is locked into the lease for a certain term, is obligated to pay the tax increase.

Another common lease type, known as a “triple-net lease,” requires tenants to reimburse or directly pay for real estate taxes. So, if commercial properties are excluded from the protections of Prop. 13, it is the existing tenant, not the building owner, who will pay the increased taxes.

Thousands of small businesses that lease space in commercial buildings throughout the state will be hit by these taxes at the worst possible time for California's economy. We hope legislators will take the time to understand how commercial real estate leases are structured – perhaps by taking a peek at their own local office leases – before responding to populist demands to change Prop. 13.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, right, wave during the inauguration of their election campaign in Jerusalem, Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012. Israel has advanced the process of building 942 more settler homes in east Jerusalem under a new fast-track plan to tighten its grip on the territory, which the Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Barry Wasserman: The article “Push to build is echoing beyond Jerusalem” [Nation&World, Dec. 28] reveals that most countries condemn Israel as defiant for planning on building up to 9,000 apartments in East Jerusalem.

Palestinians say that there can be no peace without a future Palestinian capital there. However, much of the increase in Israel's size was won in the various wars with the surrounding Arab countries. Doesn't the phrase “to the victors go the spoils” resonate with anyone?

Peace is an elusive dream that has plagued Israel since its founding. One of the last chances for hope became a pipe dream when Israel, in an effort for peace, gave back Gaza, which it had taken in war. That leap of faith proved worthless, because it allowed terrorists to rebuild and initiate more trouble than before.

Israel's move badly rattles its already-rocky relations with the rest of the world. Even its most staunch ally, the United States, accused Israel “of engaging in a pattern of provocative action.” Provocative action? It is provocative action when Israel is constantly rained down upon by rockets that are indiscriminately fired into civilian areas, not at soldiers or combatants. Yet the world remains silent.

Afghan displaced women stand in line to receive fire wood provided by a German run charity organization at a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012. A (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

MISSION VIEJO, Joseph A. Lea: I read with great interest the story on the longing for the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan [“Longing for the good old (Taliban) days,” News, Dec. 17]. According to the article, it is abundantly clear that Afghan forces remain unprepared to take over security once American troops leave by 2014.

In addition, the local people seem nostalgic for the return of the Taliban. So why are we still there? In a sidebar to the feature article, there was a Pentagon report that said only one Afghan brigade could operate solo. Only one of the Afghan National Army's 23 brigades is able to operate independently without air or other military support from the United States and NATO partners. Now this is astounding.

During World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the U.S. Army would give recruits eight weeks of basic infantry training followed by an additional eight weeks of Advanced Infantry Training. Then, after 16 weeks, the soldiers were assigned to combat infantry units and expected to be combat ready. After 12 years, Afghan forces, under the watchful training eye of Uncle Sam, can only field one combat brigade?

It should be self evident by now, that in 2001, when we had the Taliban and Osama bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora, we should have finished the job. Instead, we sent in the Afghan forces which could not or would not, do the job. It was then we seized defeat from the jaws of victory.

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